About

D.H.S.S.

Some of the issues Doris Lessing deal with in her novel ‘D.H.S.S.’ are Social security, poverty, inequality and social classes. The setting is in Britain in the 1980s, during the conservative government, where the strikes had their big run. Everything is very sensible and it is hard for people living in this time to make a living and feet their families. Also the D.H.S.S. is on a strike and it affects a lot of people who is depending on them, this strike is happening because their wages are low, which is a very common reason to strike at this time. This novel takes place over a very short period of time, it could be somewhere in between one or three hours. In the beginning we hear about this woman walking the streets and we quickly discover what it is she is doing and why is she is acting the way she does. The woman is caught in the system, and now that the DHSS is on a strike she is in a great trouble. She has begun to beg for money so she can afford to buy some food for herself and her kids. She is not very comfortable with the situation and it shows us that this is new for her. She is not used to be in this position so she feels very uncomfortable and angry to find herself here. We can conclude that she comes from bad circumstances and has probably grown up in a poor area, she speaks in a restricted code and she has been on welfare for a long time. “The young woman was facing in, not out to the street, and she moved about there indecisively but with a stubborn look” (p. 1 line 1) The way she tries to hide her face and tries to be anonymous, indicates that she feels embarrassed. The quotation also shows us that we are dealing with an objective narrator. He is an observer like us and therefore we do not know if his information is valid. To understand the story and the characters it is necessary to be critical and to compare the information we get throughout the story. For instance, this quotation could be, to tell us that the...